It’s odd how contradictory the attitudes of society can be. There are people who think nothing of hammering religious belief as the refuge of the deeply stupid and those believe in fairy tales; yet the same critics will go ballistic if religious believers suggest that Ross Hussey wasn’t performing at his moral best when he tweeted naked pictures of himself so he could meet with strangers in discreet locations.
As an oldie (eldie?), I am more and more aware of casual and constant ageism in society. “Dirty old man” is a phrase with a long history, but you’ll rarely hear of a dirty young man. Older teachers are blamed for not retiring and leaving the profession open to younger people; older residents in ‘care’ homes are frequently the object of verbal and even physical abuse. And of course the reason they’re in these ‘care’ homes in the first place is that society has decided that age reservations are a good thing – you don’t want oldies out in wider society taking forever to locate change at the check-out and boring you with stories of how things were in their day.
Which is why I’m amazed and delighted that, whatever else critics may have fired at Hillary Clinton, no one so far has alluded to her age. Because she’s 68, which is three years older than the age at which the great majority of people retire from their jobs. And Hillary is going for a job which not only will give her control of the nuclear button but, if she’s successfully, will see her still leading the most powerful country on the planet at the age of 72. Then there’s the Pope, who’s 79, and who is one of the few people to talk sense about the killing of the French priest Father Hamel.
The same people who think nothing of dismissing people as aged half-wits are often the same people who’ll show hyper-sensitivity in other areas. Like language, for example. As it happens I agree that language is extremely important and can shape our thinking. But remember the bit in Labour Party leadership contender Owen Smith’s speech, where he talked about the need for Labour to “bash Theresa May back on her heels”? Here’s former leadership contender Angela Eagle:
“He [Smith] should have and has apologized…As someone that has heard cruel words spoken about me, I know that language matters. And we’ve all got a responsibility to be sensitive in our use of language…Owen has shown a capacity to recognize and apologise for insensitivity and that’s important”.
WTF? Of course there are ways of referring to other people, particularly political opponents, which can be hurtful and/or insensitive. But to suggest that talking about smashing the Tory prime minister back on her heels is something to apologise for? Gimme a break, Angela old thing. When a less-than-lovely female MP in the House of Commons once accused Winston Churchill of being drunk, he replied that while he might be drunk she was ugly, and the difference was that he’d be OK in the morning.
Now that’s what I call insensitive language. And yes, you’re right: kinda funny too.
“He should have and has apologised.”
Asked if politicians needed to be more careful with language, she replied: “As someone that has heard cruel words spoken about me, I know that language matters. And we’ve all got a responsibility to be sensitive with our use of language.
“Owen has shown a capacity to recognise and apologise for insensitivity and that’s important.”
Ms Eagle must have missed Mr Smith’s recent reply when asked if he would be prepared to launch a nuclear attack. His reply:
“Yes, is the unfortunate answer…”
A Labour MP who quit Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet last month has been reinstated after she “unresigned” back to her post. The Leader of the Labour Party, was pleased to announce the appointment of Sarah Champion MP, as Shadow Home Office Minister, focusing on women, equality and domestic violence.
It is clear that Mr Corbyn wishes to heal divisions in the Labour Party. Ms Champion will no doubt have some advice for Mr Smith about bashing people back on their heels, with or without nuclear bombs.
May I (again) quote from THE TIMES (JULY 29)
Sir,
Aneurin Bevan described his “burning hatred” of the Conservatives and viewed them as “lower than vermin”. Neil Kinnock wanted his party to “grind the bastards into dust”. And now
Owen Smith says he want to “smash Teresa May back on her heels”. What is it about Welsh
Labour politicians?
Alec Gallagher
Potton, Beds.
Nothing wrong with their ambitions Alec, just that they haven’t been given the power.
The Conservatives, in power, crush all opposition and even coalition partners when they can.And they topple their own party leaders when they’re not fit for purpose.Vermin, sure,
but very impressive vermin.
“There are people who think nothing of hammering religious belief as the refuge of the deeply stupid and those believe in fairy tales; yet the same critics will go ballistic if religious believers suggest that Ross Hussey wasn’t performing at his moral best when he tweeted naked pictures of himself so he could meet with strangers in discreet locations.”
For example?
“The same people who think nothing of dismissing people as aged half-wits are often the same people who’ll show hyper-sensitivity in other areas. ”
For example?
Coughs politely and tip-toes away. Noblesse oblige…
Maybe the politically correct thought police thought that to ‘bash her back on her heels’ was so offensive is because of her penchant for ridiculously expensive heels.
Had she normally worn a cheap pair of trainers (or gutties) it is possible no one would have batted an eyelid!
“Gutties”….Now there’s a word redolent of smelly, school- gym changing rooms. Oh the nostalgia of life on another planet, ha ha!
A woman would be called a cougar which is a polite way of saying dirty old woman.
The current Pope is a good man, but it would not be down to his age.
He was picked deliberately because he was a good and humble man and because the catholic church was in danger of becoming unpopular shall we say over its elitism.
They still have not adequately handled or paid for their actions in the child abuse scandals in Ireland. In my opinion they MUST hand over all school grounds freely to the state and separate from the education system, and I would like to see this happen in line with reunification as a positive gesture to reassure protestants and to make a genuine effort at remorse which to date they have failed to do.
I wonder what she would make of an MP saying they had to hold their noses to sit in Westminster with them or what she thinks of one of her ministers, gregory campbells various bigoted remarks?
As someone who first got a real glimpse of the globe, Esteemed Blogmeister, through the prism of the Fabulous Fifties – when tunes still belonged to songs and fillums had to have wit as distinct from width – one has no choice but to be in the anti-ageism camp.
The worst part of growing old is possibly having females d’un age certain cat-fighting each other for the honour of offering their seat on the public omnibus to the Last Ancient Standing. Doesn’t sit at all well with one’s inner Beau Brummel.
Nonetheless, there is an exception. (Isn’t there always?). It is to be found when ‘old’ is soldered to the f-word;
-Old fogey.
Take today’s ultimate old fogeys’ home (gulp) The Unionist Times.
-Culture shock: The North leads the way for fresh takes on the Rising.
Fintan O’Toole (for it is he, for it is he !) is culturally shocking his vast readership of reverent non-sceptics – by explaining how:
– there used to be a choice for artists – reverence for the Rising or scathing scepticism. Now, it is possible to be scathing and reverent at the same time.
The old yet still fine-minded fogey forges ahead:
-It may not be accidental that this approach is best exemplified by two northern artists , Paul Muldoon and Rita Duffy.
The Mind who makes up the Minds of the Mindless next goes on to the remind the latter that:
-It may be somewhat tiresome to have to identify both Muldoon and Duffy as northerners from a broadly nationalist background, but in this case it seems relevant.
Here are some choice examples from the work of the Norn Iron nationalist artists which the formidable old fogey’s inner cherry picker, erm, sticky picks:
-Paul Muldoon’s ‘Patrick Pearse: A Manifesto’ contains a reference to the rebels’ may not share the sweet taste of victory’ buy may ‘find joy in our retreat to the William and Woods jam factory’.
Rita Duffy, an installation artists (a branch of art The Perkin has a particularly soft spot for, as his next door neighbour is a Double Glazier who can be always counted on for d’ould discount) is namechecked for her ‘The Souvenir Shop’.
Find-minded Fintan’s inner installation artist finds it so ferociously good he second and third guesses the artist by offering alternative names:
-McDonagh and McBride Merchants and Connolly’s Commercial Arms.
Eh ?
Is the ultimate Old Fogey really telling us that he is so advanced in years he does not recall that what he has highlighted here is actually old hat? In fact, very old slouch hat, indeed.
That he is in fact the only thing worse than an old fogey – a young fogey*- whose memory does not stretch back as far as 1971 ? No Danno Domini,he?
That, of course, was the year that Hugh Leonard’s bedroom farce first showed its arse to the public on the stage of the Olympia Theatre on Dame Street, Dublin 2:
-The Patrick Pearse Motel.
Is the Free Southern Stateen’s finest mind, the Fine-minded Fintan genuinely forgetting that not only does this scathingly skeptical play (premiered a short five years after the same dramatist had penned the reverential Insurrection series for RTE in 1966) tear the tripes out of the reputation of the 1916 terrorists but rip the stripes off their bogus uniforms.?
For the Patrick Pearse Motel is just one of a chain of motels which trade under the name Mother Ireland Motels which sells Irish chauvinism: each room is decorated with a portrait of a national hero. And one of the characters in the play, a co-owner of the chain, is actually called (gasp) Fintan.
FOT, a bogus old fogey? Surely not. Cherish the very thought !
What, then?
Perchance, the clue to the riddle is to be toe-stubbed in the last paragraph:
-The remarkable, but hopeful, thing is that these are publicly funded projects (of Muldoon and Duffy) commissioned by RTE and the Art Council respectively. Double-mindedness is perhaps, at last becoming official.
Hmmmm.
Maybe that last word ought to be upgraded with a capital o: Official.
Or, perhaps, freedom of expression-loving Fintan’s reputation of being a firm but ferocious supporter of arch-censor Conor Craze O’Brain – he had a sticky badge to that effect on the lapel of his inner young fogey in the 1970s – has failed the Bostick test of time?
Double-mindedness comes to mind in this imprimatur to the, erm, Officially approved artists, Muldoon and Duffy. But , worryingly, not for the most opitimistic of reasons.
Could it be a dry straw in the camel-back wind (aka the Ghibli, in Libyan Arabic) that all is not too well, financially, with (gasp) The Unionist Times? That they are being compelled to pander to those of ‘a broadly nationalist background’. (We’re not, repeat NOT, talking mortal Shinners here).
Normally, gan dabht/ of course, they look to Northern Yoons when it comes to re- educating its readership (Mao is less) on the southern side of the Black Sow’s Dyke as to the royalties, oops, realities of life in Norn Iron. (Hugh Leonard was a Southern Yoon).
Take yesterday’s edish of TUT, for instance, for a typical random sample of same. A piece by Donald Clarke, resident fillum buff..
-Here is the next phase of the Bobby Sands story.
That is the headline; this is the sub-heading:
-Brendan J. Byrne director of ‘Bobby Sands: 66 days’ attempts to balance republican voices with nuanced historical analysis 36 years after the hunger strikes.
Not only is Donald Clarke a Northern Yoon, but, boy, is he nuanced. Now, it may be tiresome to mention that Brendan J. Byrne is from a a broadly nationalist background, but, hey !, get this:
-I did interview Jennifer McCann, a well-known republican. She never strays beyond Sinn Fein speak. There is an inability sometimes of Sinn Fein to do other than Sinn Fein speak.
Unlike , say…..?
Hmmmm. Let one put one one’s thinking caubeen on. Unlike….
-Fintan O’Toole opens the conversations.
Of ‘Bobby Sands: 666, oops, 66 days’.
The same, who never – what, never ? – EVER displays an ability to do other than Fintan O’Toole speak.
Old fogeys don’t just fade away, it seems – they merely wade away, having left their FOT steps on the sands of The Unionist Times, into the Sea of Self-reverence to a foamy seagull chorus of …..
-FOGUE mo THOIN !
PS * For the old fogey/ young fogey dichotomy – think Harris. Eoghan and Simon, respectively.
–
–
“Old fogeys don’t just fade away, it seems – they merely wade away, having left their FOT steps on the sands of The Unionist Times, into the Sea of Self-reverence to a foamy seagull chorus of …..
-FOGUE mo THOIN !
PS * For the old fogey/ young fogey dichotomy – think Harris. Eoghan and Simon, respectively.” To quote Gilbert and Sullivan (The Pirates of Penzance): Oh joy, oh rapture!
It is not so much ageism as AIGism which concerns most normal Dubs these days, Esteemed Blogmeister.
AIG, of course, are the sponsors of the Dublin football team and such has been the level of dominance in recent years of the Blue and Bluers that opposition counties are composing new ways to stymie this supremacy of the Dubs.
For instance, Westmeath fielded a player called Gounod (!) against them in the Leinster Final; sure enough, the underdogs had a fine, erm, Faust half.
Donegal, who are Dublin’s opponents next Saturday in the All-Ireland quarter finals, have studied this performance. By now, even the underdogs on the capital’s streets know what their strategy will be. Indeed, The Sound of Mood Music among the Hills of Donegal has it that the Green and Gold ganseysed team will focus on the second half.
Unlike Westmeath, they will be determined not to play second fiddle sa dara leath.
Thus, it is widely anticipated that after half time, the likes of Hudi McMenamin and Stan Goitse will be introduced off the Donegal bench.
Stand by, Dublin, for a full on counter-tenor attack, full of, erm, Sax and Violins.
PS One mentioned the Dublin football team. In the M.S.M. (Main Stream Media) it was fashionable at one stage (till it became unprofitable if not unpopular among the cretinous set) in certain anti-Dublications on Liffeyside (!) to refer to Gaelic football as bogball. This was to distinguish it from football, aka, soccer.
To the fore of this uber-boring cohort of soccer-shackled hacks was, of course, Declan Lynch-mob.
Not the least surprising element of this fair game-calling on his part was his county of origin: Westmeath. Hardly now a byeword for bricks and mortar.
The West Brit of Westmeath (for it is also he!) is credited with the invention of a germ-free term of endearment …..eejitry. Hardly a week passes that he does not namecheck his invention / patent at least twice or four times in his celebrated column:
-Game for a Scaff.
It is exclusively used by him, curiously enough, to refer to such staid pursuits as the playing of bogball, the supporting of the Shinners or the paying of lip service / speaking the Leprechaun.
It is never, ever, used, oddly enough, in connection with his favourite game, football. Declan Lynch-mob, unsurprisingly, was the hack handpicked to pen the hagiography of St. John Giles. The first antiphon of which sacred tome went as follows, not:
-When Johnny Giles first learned how to play the game of soccer on the side streets of Dublin……
Perhaps, in the interests of clarity, the time is ripe to coin a new term for football/ soccer to match that of bogball. One such term automatically suggests itself in this Exceptional Era of Eejitry.
In the recent Euros 2016 final in which Portugal defeated the favourites, France, (on a scoreline of zero: minus) the winning team had much to thank the performance of the tall, gangling midfielder on the losing team.
To be objective about it, this performance by Paul Pogba (car, c’etait lui !) was abject.
Indeed, it reminded one viewer of an amateur giraffe being photographed for Page 3 of the Belfast Telegraph. Such were the endearingly awkward yet somehow unseemly shapes he was throwing.
As a result of this stunning performance, he is in the process of being bought by Man U from the Juventus juvenile team, now that he has reached his majority, for a tidy sum in the eejiotic region of (gulp) 120 mill-uns in Noonan-speak.
Pogball, anyone ?
Old fogeys are fortunate compared to old golfers, who never die, they only lose their balls!
Indeed; and the examples given are, I think, evidence of something quite untoward and unbecoming in our society: we are a factional society – with each trying to outdo the other with protestations of their own righteousness.
And we do all of this while at the same time respecting individual rights (or so I’m told). What we mean, of course, is not that other people have rights, but that other people have the right to do what they want to do as long as they don’t bother me – with the latter being preeminent.
All of which amounts, not to mutual respect, or even tolerance (was there ever a more mean-spirited attitude than ‘I tolerate you’?), but to a well disguised intolerance of the other. As a result we are more intolerant, more selfish and more judgemental.
Which brings us to the question of words.
Following the rise of ‘many digital authors’ (including all of us who grace this site) and the simultaneous ‘death of the author’, words have come to mean whatever anyone wants them to mean – hence the endless demands for apologies over nothing, and the inability of many to interpret language in any way other than the literal.
And so we are not, unfortunately, concerned with what people have actually said or at pains to find out what they actually mean, we wish only to hold them to account on the basis of what we have decided they said, whether it is accurate or not.
If we are not careful, language itself will die.
Thank you, PF, for a splendidly lucid and accurate comment. I agree with every word – except maybe your last sentence…Although then again, language might die of shame.
Language will never die so long as there is a need to communicate, it will evolve.
Partition is the root cause of our being more intolerant, more selfish and more judgemental in this part of the world as everything comes down to the national question.
We have simply fudged it through the GFA and it has run out of rope.
“Partition is the root cause of our being more intolerant, more selfish and more judgemental in this part of the world as everything comes down to the national question.”
Well I’d say that I and many others rarely think about the national question in are day to day lives. Must people don’t care.
“Well I’d say that I and many others rarely think about the national question in are day to day lives. Must people don’t care.”
Then we should start the ball rolling and start discussing what a reunified Ireland will look like, get the referendum in the north passed and but the national issue which isn’t important to you to bed once and for all.
I have no problem with the border poll happening it would certainly sort things out for a while at least.
My point though is that no everything has to be framed by the constitutional question. Most people including myself aren’t that bother and just want a good life.
And I wish you very well in that regard Scott.
But the act remains, Northern Ireland is dragging further behind the UK, it is failing too many of our people and is for nothing but the endurance of the sectarian bigotry inherent within unionism that clearly is not as prevalent within the Irish nation in general, both in the south and within the generally Irish catholic population in the north,
Irish Unionism or British separatism in Ireland which is what it should be called is a festering wound on this island and it needs to be removed.
Our people could be much better off in all parts of this island through reunification and looking after our own interests, putting Ireland first and letting the UK get on with its own affairs.
Too many people are not achieving that good life you mention, and your affinity to England is not sufficient reason to allow it hold us back any longer.
The ball and chain of Unionism is becoming more and more intolerable and it has to end.
Thank you, Jude; some credit must also be given to the quality of education received in the ‘South Buildings’ of a local university, if you see what I mean – it was, however, a long time ago!
Jessica,
I fear I must take issue with your last comment – not everything revolves around the problem of Partition.
As we have noticed on others occasions, even our sectarian clans are divided. In the same way we are divided by (and allow ourselves to be divided by, I’m not saying it’s a good thing) gender, race, religion, wealth, accent, education, views on morality, and the baser instincts of strength and power. And in these divisions we put ourselves against the other, by word, deed and digital click.
Unfortunately the West has lost a good deal of cohesion, and even the cloak of civility which once hid our previous ills has slipped, or been cast off, I’m not sure which!
“I fear I must take issue with your last comment – not everything revolves around the problem of Partition.”
Partition is the single biggest problem in Ireland today and is about to become an even greater problem.
It is a problem we have a means to resolve and it should not be allowed to endure any longer.
I’ll put it this way then:
Even if Ireland were to be reunited, it would still be one among many Western nations continuing to suffer all the ills Jude has brought our attention.
Yes, a balance might tip – but think of it only as the tipping of a disk balanced on a pin, while the varying factions of our Western demise continue to rush hither and thither on top.
Just as I am a Unionist who understands that the Union is not safe, I am also a ‘nationalist’ in the sense that I believe in the concept of nations and nation states as being good for the world – but the idea of the nation is in danger as well. And it is threatened by the factions I have mentioned, by the problems Jude has raised, by all powerful corporations and by those who control the ‘economy’ i.e. cash flow.
In that context a United Ireland might fulfil the cultural and historical wishes of many in this society but it will give the Irish people no greater say in the world than Ulster unionists have influence in the EU (or the UK for that matter).
Our problems are greater than Partition – perhaps it will take a United Ireland to help us realise that.
I don’t want Ireland to have a greater say in the world PF, that is an English concept.
All I want is to be a part my own country which British occupation through its pandering to unionism is denying to me.
I have nothing against the British people, their cultures or whatever. I work with them regularly and they have no ill will towards Ireland. Unionism has very little in common with Britain that I can see.
What I want is to be allowed to work hard and do all I can to make my country Ireland the best it can be for our own people. Nothing more
Is that too much to ask for?
“What I want is to be allowed to work hard and do all I can to make my country Ireland the best it can be for our own people. Nothing more
Is that too much to ask for?”
For a Nationalist – of course it’s not too much to ask.
But I wasn’t seeking to deny that aspiration.
All I am saying is that the reunification of Ireland will not be the ‘cure all’, you appear to suggest it is.
The world has changed, and Ireland is subject to influences that even 15 years ago, never mind 30 years ago we could not have imagined. And even in the United Ireland you crave, there will be many, many cultural, national and international influences with you will have no control over.
If I were to use your word, it would be a shift from a British “occupation” to a global “occupation” – an occupation of ideas, which has, infact, already gained more ground that we realise.
I don’t want or expect to have control in a united Ireland. I want to be able to elect the government that represents the Irish nation and the Irish people of which I am a part.
I want to pay my taxes into the Irish economy and to be a part of making Ireland a better society for all no matter where they come from.
I have already said on this site before, I would have no problem paying private health insurance for all employees. I think the future of the health service in Ireland is for those in work and their immediate families to have full cover paid for by their employers and those not working to have a base cover.
I have no idea what you are on about by “global “occupation””. As I said, I don’t want anything unreasonable out of my country, I just want to be a part of it and to feel that I am a part of it. Major decisions will always be made be elected representatives.
Britain has no relevance to me whatsoever. It is another country across the water.
And that is the biggest problem we have at the moment. Unionists are ignoring this fact that nationalists are being denied what is important to them for their benefits. What do you expect will happen when the demographic changes?
“I have no idea what you are on about by “global “occupation””. ”
This thread has been about Political Correctness and Ageism and the problems associated with both.
Into that discussion, you introduced the problem of Partition as “the single biggest problem in Ireland today” – it is this point that I am debating.
Ireland has other problems – problems associated with Political Correctness (including the use and demise of language) and Ageism.
These are global (mostly Western) problems which, I described as ‘global occupations’ above.
In other words, these problematic attitudes and cultural expressions of the West ‘occupy’ our nations – they are ‘ideas’ which occupy our thinking, speaking, acting and interacting, and they will remain influential whether Partition remains or not.
The West suffers many problems, in particular we have been discussing those raised by Jude; at no time on this thread have I been talking about anything else.
Partition may be a problem – it is not the only one – that was my only point.
I agree PF, I am sure we have a lot of problems just as any part of the world.
And partition is probably a much greater problem for Irish citizens in the occupied counties and those closer to the border than it is for those further south.
What I will say, I would prefer to have an agreed settlement here, and I think it would be best negotiated when unionism is at its strongest which is past tense now as the numbers will be going against you from here.
You can be sure there will be plenty of gio’s to take unionisms corner but I still do not understand how unionism as a whole refuses to even discuss it, to acknowledge our past mistakes and at least try to reconcile our differences on this island.
Jessica
If you still manage to pick up this response, then,
“I still do not understand how unionism as a whole refuses to even discuss it…”
In terms of the United Ireland aspect of that question, Unionism *can’t* discuss it because to discuss it means to have failed. It means discussing the terms of our surrender of identity.
Now, I tend to think that every card in the pack is staked against us (as Unionists) and that therefore it would be pragmatic to discuss the possibilities – but Unionists, generally, aren’t pragmatic, we’re driven by principle (right or wrong) and once we’ve got a principle in our heads it’s very difficult to shift.
It’s one of the reasons we keep saying, “No.”
My fear is that my community will still be saying no, even when every other fact in the land says otherwise – and they’ll have had no say over anything.
And that is a no win situation PF, all it will do is delay the inevitable until there is a large catholic majority which is less than 10 years away and you would be very foolish to think will not end up wanting unification and prioritisation of the Irish identity.
It is also by definition confirmation of my opinion that unionism is a sliding scale of bigotry as it is clearly therefore by its own making incapable of being tolerant towards Irish unification and only varies by how much individuals show there opposition to my views.
More interesting though, is that you declare yourself a unionist but do not seem to be bound with the same intransigence which is confusing to me.
Based on your willingness to discuss openly here options most unionists would be uncomfortable with.
I would like to pursue a win win situation, where compromise is the basis of agreement and not seen as failure.
All I see is the leaders of unionism afraid to be the first to show weakness through compromise, but the same people will simply leave and go live in England when the numbers game turns their hand upside down. Where is that going to leave unionism then?
What annoys me most is how much more we could be growing our economy and building a prosperous nation of our own design.
Unfortunately I would like that to be more unlike the British parliament which I think the Dail is too like and does not suit us in Ireland.
One last question.
You say again, we keep saying no referring to you having a similar position to unionism in general which I don’t quite see.
Why do I have the feeling if the leadership of unionism were to take a leap of faith and put it up to nationalism and in particular the south, how much brutishness would they be prepared to tolerate for a peaceful settlement not based on numbers but unification for a shared future, no might be a think of the past?